


you tricked me into you

by lalejandra



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Empires (Band), Fall Out Boy
Genre: Divorce, Fade to Black, Friendship, Hugs, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Hiatus (Fall Out Boy), Tom is not a werewolf, friendship sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:35:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/pseuds/lalejandra
Summary: Pete needs a hug, Tom is not a werewolf, the Cobra is the conduit.
Relationships: Tom Conrad/Pete Wentz
Kudos: 3





	you tricked me into you

**Author's Note:**

> Heather Chandler is the first death in _Heathers_. [This is the Hugga Bunch song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3fBShGgtzk). (The Hugga Bunch movie means to be uplifting but it really is depressing on multiple levels; I don't actually recommend it as a palate cleanser for _The Stand_.)  
> 

  


Pete likes knowing that almost anywhere he goes, there will be someone to cuddle him when he gets there. There was a while where that actually sucked and made him feel claustrophobic, but about a month after Fall Out Boy went on hiatus, the switch flipped and it became pretty much the best thing ever.

In some cities, there's even more than one person who will share a bed with him, let him be the little spoon and put his cold feet on their shins; in some cities -- okay, in one city, there's two people who will do that at the same time.

Chicago actually sucks for this, though. Pete always ends up feeling more alone whenever he's around all the people he knows in Chicago. His mom can try, but as much as he loves her, her arms around his shoulders make him feel like he's fourteen again, and she'll send him away if he puts a foot wrong. It's better when Bronx is there, because he's always willing to hug, and he's a buffer between Pete and his family.

But Bronx is with Ash for the next two weeks, and Pete had decided to hit Chicago for Thanksgiving anyway -- worst idea ever. 

After turkey but before pie, he sneaks away to the bathroom and texts Gabe: _Get me out of here dude now now now_

He's expecting a phone call, to have to excuse himself and take a slice of pie upstairs to pretend to talk Gabe out of some imagined crisis, such unfortunate timing, just as both uncles were about to gang up on him and force-feed him business advice, his mom's arm around his waist holding him in place. Darn.

Instead, he gets a text: _Help coming._

After pie and coffee (and a pointed comment about the way caffeine interacts with anti-anxiety meds from Pete's least favorite aunt who clearly watches Dr Oz every day), the doorbell rings. Hilary answers it (clearly grateful to get away from the drilling about her love life, but Pete can't be worried about that; it's every sibling for their own self tonight) and comes back into the dining looking confused.

"Pete…" She hesitates, then finally says, "There's someone here for you?"

"Is there or isn't there?" he snaps, but pushes his chair back and runs for the foyer. 

"Yo." Tom squints at him. Even though the forecast has been calling for a winter storm, Tom's wearing jeans and a jean jacket (and, Pete notices distractedly, his denims don't match) over his ubiquitous white T-shirt and cardigan. And flip flops. "Ready to go?" His eyes flick up and behind Pete, and he adds, "There's totally an emergency. Gabe said you could help."

"What kind of emergency?" asks Pete's mom. She doesn't even look suspicious, but Pete doesn't feel bad at all. He needs a hug from someone who never sent him to fucking boot camp and who doesn't want to lecture him about American-made products.

Tom stares at her. "Uh," he finally says. "I can't really tell you, I'm. You know. Not allowed. Pete only gets to know because he's the boss."

Pete's mom nods like she knows all about non-disclosure agreements -- well, she actually does; it's a good thing she has no idea that Empires isn't on DecayDance. Pete shrugs into his coat and checks the inside pocket for his wallet. Phone in his pants. Keys. He's good.

"Let's roll," he says to Tom. "Bye, Mom, back later, don't wait up." He kisses her cheek and gets the hell out of there.

*

Tom drives a clunker so old it only has a tape deck, and when Pete pushes the unmarked tape in, Jon's voice floats out. Pete pops the tape out again and flicks through the radio until he hits "Circle in the Sand"; he and Tom both sing along as Tom steers onto the highway, but Tom gets some of the words wrong.

"Thanks for coming," Pete finally says, quiet enough that Tom can ignore him if he wants to.

"No problem." Tom doesn't even look over at him. "It's not a full moon or anything tonight, so I wasn't doing anything."

Pete looks away from the window and scowls at Tom. "Dude, seriously, that wasn't me! I'm telling you, I think it was Brendon."

"Brendon only ever starts rumors about sex," Tom says dismissively.

"Well, maybe you're a horny, insatiable werewolf," grumbles Pete.

"Yeah, maybe," says Tom, but he snickers afterward. 

The radio station turns out to be running a very special Delilah program, so Pete goes back to hitting scan and stops trying to make conversation. He doesn't know where Tom is taking them (except south, into the city proper) and he doesn't ask, just speculates that the universe is trying to tell himself something about his life via radio while he sings along with Gin Blossoms ("Is there a line that I could write sad enough to make you cry?"), and then Live ("And leave you there by yourself chained to fate"), and then Pearl Jam ("I know you'll be the sun in somebody else's sky, but why why why can't it be can't it be mine?") and finally, after Lisa Loeb ("And you say I only hear what I want to") he turns off the radio, feeling vicious and too raw, and lets out a long breath.

"Fuck," he says to the window. "Are we almost there?"

"Where do you think we're going?" Tom asks, but it's only a few more minutes before he's turning down a dark, empty street, and parking. "C'mon, Wentz, just a couple flights of stairs."

"I'm not gonna make it," Pete mutters, but follows Tom. It's freezing outside, and in the halls of the building they enter, Tom's key jamming before the door groans open. The stairs are creaky and made of wood, and the whole place reminds Pete of nothing so much as the apartment he shared with Patrick and Joe.

That feels like a million years ago.

Tom's apartment is messy, cluttered with clothes and guitars and cameras. There are prints everywhere, and some kind of set-up in the corner of shipping materials. The desk is, like, a big slab of wood balanced on top of a television. Where the TV would be in the living room area is a set of amps and a bunch of mics and mic stands. The walls have prints hanging -- framed, matted, and a couple that look like they were stuck up with chewing gum.

"You can come in," Tom says. "The couch is okay to sit on, although Max dropped a box of a hundred guitar picks onto it the other day, so you might get poked in the ass."

Pete bites back the three separate jokes he thinks of, and just nods. "Thanks, man." He gestures to the wall, where a photo of Bill -- not on stage, but in a van, lying on his stomach, looking away from the camera -- hangs near a spread of a bunch of pictures of flowers. "I thought you and William…"

Tom shrugs and offers Pete a bottle of beer. "Life goes on," he says. "It's a good picture."

"Yeah, it is." Pete wanders around the room, drinking the beer and looking at the pictures. His phone keeps going off, and when he finally checks it, it's a bunch of shit he doesn't care about right now, a picture from Ashlee of Bronx on Joe's lap ( _Ugh_ , Pete thinks spitefully), and a text from Gabe from seconds ago that says, _Don't be a dick to Tom, fucker._

Pete tilts his head to look at Tom from under his hair. Tom's ignoring him, sitting on the couch, drinking beer and leafing through a magazine.

Pete runs through several responses to Gabe before landing on: _Thanks for sending him._

_Thank Bill, the cobra was just the conduit._

That means Bill texted or called Tom; Pete thinks about how he'd feel if he got a call from Patrick on a holiday, only to hear Patrick ask him to do a favor for someone Pete didn't really give a shit about, and winces.

"Hey, dude, I can't believe your TV isn't hooked up. How are we going to watch shitty movies and braid each other's hair?" Pete jumps over the back of the couch and lands next to Tom, only sloshing a little beer onto his pants. 

"Laptop," replies Tom, and pulls it from a shelf in the coffee table. That's kind of cool. Pete's coffee table is some kind of glass monstrosity that he's always worried Bronx will break. (Except Bronx is a remarkably non-destructive child, but it's easier to say that than admit that Pete's worried one day he's going to fall face first into it like Heather Chandler.)

"Anything but _Heathers_ ," says Pete, and settles back as Tom boots up the laptop and loads Netflix. Tom's top recommendations are a category Netflix calls "Heartfelt Dramas," and below that are BBC series, and below that are "Dark End-of-the-World Movies"; Pete points and says, " _Prophecy II_ ," and Tom loads it immediately.

"You know this movie sucks, right?" Tom positions the laptop so they can both see, and kicks his feet up onto the coffee table next to it.

"Christopher Walken is badass in everything, though," points out Pete, and then mouths along with the voice over, "…for what I see is the coming end of the Kingdom of Heaven."

After _Prophecy II_ , it's barely seven pm, so Tom orders a pizza and more beer (which Pete pays for, because he's a douchebag, not a total fucking dick) and they watch _The Stand_. Pete is not ashamed that he keeps edging closer and closer to Tom, because when everyone on screen is dying and it's the end of the world, having someone else there is a must. While Stu wanders through his vision corn, Tom sighs noisily.

"Come on, man, I've known you a long time already," Tom says. Pete's not sure what that means, but when he looks at Tom, Tom looks… softer than usual. Like maybe he understands. And then he puts out an arm and raises his eyebrows. Pete's not gonna turn down that invitation; he crawls close and lets his head rest on Tom's shoulder.

Tom is super warm, and smells like cold air, and, okay, yeah, Pete would in no way be surprised to find out that Tom's a werewolf, even though he knows it's not true. Well, he doesn't _know_ it, but he's pretty sure. Pete sniffs Tom's shirt; he uses some kind of detergent that smells like cedar or something. It's fucking awesome. And his hair --

"Are you sniffing me?" Tom asks.

"Maybe." Pete ducks his head a little. "Is that okay?"

"Sure." Tom leans forward and Pete's suddenly chilly; he makes the computer a little louder, and then sits back. His apartment is actually kind of cold when they're just sitting there, drinking beer and watching movies. Pete gropes for his coat on the other end of the couch and pulls it over his legs. 

Tom is really twitchy, and he keeps shifting, but his arm never comes away from Pete, so Pete doesn't really give a fuck. 

Pete looks away as Stu leaves the CDC facility with the gun, tucking his face into Tom's soft cardigan. His breath smells like beer and pizza, but it's not too gross when it mixes with Tom's cedary medicine smell. Pete always forgets that he actually hates _The Stand_.

"I always forget that I hate this stupid movie," he says a few minutes later, once the first part is over. Tom rolls his eyes. 

"Do you need a palate cleanser?" Tom asks. "Sean is really into the original Care Bears movie."

"You have that shit?" Pete asks, because fuck yeah original Care Bears. Forest of Feelings and Care-A-Lot and Earth aren't far apart.

"Better," Tom tells him, and closes out of Netflix. He opens up the motherfucking Hugga Bunch movie.

"Oh shit," Pete breathes.

"Yeah, I thought so," Tom says, sounding satisfied.

Pete sings along with the Hugga Bunch softly -- So give a hug to someone who is sad -- and tucks himself tighter into Tom, who doesn't seem to mind. He just cracks another beer and says all the lines along with the evil queen, his voice round and full.

"That's some sad shit," Tom says when it's over. "Feel better?"

Pete nods without looking up.

"Smoke, more beer, or both?" Tom asks. He moves away from Pete a little, yawning and stretching. Pete does the same, lying down on the warm spot on the couch where Tom had been sitting and arching his back until it cracks. 

"I dunno, it's getting late, isn't it?" Pete gropes for his phone but doesn't unlock it.

"Whatever, you can stay over unless you have someplace to be. Bed's big enough to sleep four."

Pete squints at Tom; he's backlit, bending down to get more beer from the fridge. Pete is pretty sure he has, like, a lifetime supply of beer in there. "That sounds like life experience talking," he says.

"Yeah, well, at one point Sean had the idea that if we all slept together, we'd have a shared dream about the album." Tom laughs, almost giggles; Pete wants him to come back to the couch immediately and make that sound while Pete's head is on his chest, listening to his insides gurgle. "We didn't have a shared dream, but Sean woke up feeling more inclined to let Max boss him around, so it was successful, anyway."

Pete just makes a noise with his mouth that doesn't mean anything. Tom keeps talking about Max, and Pete lets him, watches him move around the tiny apartment, watches his fingers pack a pipe and light it up.

He offers it to Pete, but Pete shakes his head. "Any?" asks Tom around the smoke. 

"I dunno," Pete says.

Tom exhales a big cloud of smoke. "So normally I wouldn't ever," he says, and Pete thinks he's talking about the pot for a second (LOL NO blinks in his head), "but… I kind of think you're waiting for me to?" 

Pete has no idea what he's talking about, and Tom must get that, because he gestures for Pete to move closer to him on the couch. 

"I'm not really a first move guy," Tom tells him, and sparks the pipe again. He puts down the lighter after he's done inhaling, and slides his hand onto Pete's waist, using it to guide Pete onto his lap. Tom isn't a huge guy, but he's bigger than Pete, and it's weird, kind of; it's definitely weird to feel the chest hair under Tom's white T-shirt. Then Tom fits his mouth onto Pete's and Pete's only got a split second to realize that he needs to be inhaling as Tom breathes the smoke out and into Pete's throat.

It's okay; the kissing is better. Tom's lips taste as red as they look; Pete isn't sure what that means, but he knows it's true. They're soft and plump and Tom groans when Pete bites his top lip, scrapes his teeth over the bow. Pete likes how Tom's hands tighten on his waist but don't move; he likes how every time Tom takes in a breath, Pete's hands on his chest can feel it.

"Yes," says Pete into his mouth, "make the first move."

Tom huffs out a laugh, and Pete takes it into himself the way he took the smoke. 

*

In the morning, they wake up ridiculously early for when they finally fell asleep -- Pete does, anyway. He'd been up until at least three, staring at the wall while Tom snored. 

Tom makes coffee and offers him leftover pizza from last night. "Or eggs, but we're in the middle of tour, so I don't really know how long they've been here," he says. Pete takes the pizza and the black coffee. 

The edges of his lips are cracked and raw, the back of his throat sore. He likes it, and he likes the way he can still feel Tom's hips bucking under his hands and Tom's fingers petting his face. Tom had put him on all fours and rimmed him, and jerked him off expertly, his thumb rubbing the underside of the head of Pete's cock while his tongue dipped inside. No one had ever rimmed Pete like that before, like it was something to be enjoyed instead of just tolerated.

And then, instead of rolling over or being weird, Tom had yawned and said, "Now sleeping," and just pulled Pete to him like Pete was a giant teddy bear, curling up around him. Pete fucking loves being the little spoon.

Pete sips his coffee and watches Tom, across the table, sipping his, watching him back.

"I'm still not convinced you're not a werewolf," Pete tells him. "No mortal puts off that much body heat."

Tom grins at Pete over the top of his coffee cup. Wolfishly. "You weren't complaining last night."

"I'm not complaining now," Pete explains, "I'm just _observing_."

"Uh-huh." Tom looks down, and Pete kind of hates himself for noticing that his eyelashes are long and golden. But he does notice, and Pete tries not to lie to himself. Much. He mentally composes a text to Gabe: _Tomrad has better eyelashes than you, whatcha gonna do about it?_ There is no way he'll send that, though; Gabe gets vicious when his eyelashes are impugned. 

Pete tries to move slowly, but he didn't bring anything with him, so it doesn't take him long to get ready to go. Now they have to sit in traffic to get back to Pete's mom's house, and listen to more crappy radio from when Pete was in high school judging Pete's life. On their way out the door, Tom digs through a box full of cassette tapes, and hands a pile of them to Pete.

"Racetraitor?" Pete laughs. "Nice, dude."

"Hey, man, don't mock the cassette tapes. Check this out." He taps one of them, then nudges Pete out of the way to close and lock the door. Pete looks down.

"Oh, shit, _Empire Strikes Back_ soundtrack? Okay, that's actually nice." When they get to Tom's car, Pete pulls out the tape with Jon's songs and puts in the first _Empire Strikes Back_ one. The traffic isn't that bad; a million people are out already, because it's already, like, almost seven, but they're all going _into_ the city, not leaving it. And Pete doesn't feel awkward talking to Tom at all; the tapes must be a good luck charm. 

When Tom pulls into the driveway, he lets the car idle in park. "It's possible there will be another emergency tonight," he says, not looking at Pete. The fingers of one hand drum on the steering wheel, and he's scratching his throat with the other hand. There's a mark, tiny and purple, where Pete sucked too hard.

Pete licks his lips. "Well, I'll be here. I'd -- uh. I can help out with that, if you wanted."

Tom keeps not looking at him. "I wouldn't want you to. You know, feel like you had to or anything."

Pete tucks a finger into the buttonhole of Tom's jean jacket, and tugs a little. Tom finally turns. He really does have amazing eyelashes. Pete leans up a little and brushes their mouths together. "Family stuff is over today by, like, four," he says. "Come get me whenever. We can finish watching _The Stand_."

Tom rolls his eyes and grins his wolfy grin. "So I'll plan to come get you around two, and we'll watch something with Care Bears."

Pete kisses him again, and grins while he unlocks the front door and Tom drives away. He's still grinning when he hits the kitchen and his mom hands him a cup of coffee. She's eating leftover pie.

"I'm going out again later," Pete tells her around a mouthful of apples, and when she puts an arm around his back and pulls him in for a hug, he lets her, drops his head to her shoulder and hugs her back.

When she lets him go, he sits down at the table in the dining room and texts Twitter: _The Cobra and @tomconrad are great to have around in emergencies. I plan to have emergencies way more often from now on._

  



End file.
